


Project Ahmdulain: Chapter 2

by SquatWizard



Category: Original Work
Genre: Action/Adventure, Blood and Gore, Fantasy, Magic, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 01:59:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11117511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquatWizard/pseuds/SquatWizard
Summary: My second chapter of Project Ahmdulain. Again, any thoughts, criticisms, suggestions, etc. are encouraged.





	Project Ahmdulain: Chapter 2

**Author's Note:**

> My second chapter of Project Ahmdulain. Again, any thoughts, criticisms, suggestions, etc. are encouraged.

Chapter 2: A Teythin Afternoon

Multiverse Sahl, Universe Ptahp

Hub Ahmdulain, City of Domnirie on Qwehym Ehpnain, Myrn’s Tower

Cycle: 17B, 256M, 000K, 009 by Teythin Reckoning

 

Dancing and roaring shrilly among the clouds and stars. Wisps cerulean and coral she strided upon. Little body charging through great walls of downy color only to pop out in a colorful puff on the other side. The apprentice lept up onto the blue globe that was the closest star, and used its neighbors as stepping stones to climb further. Further. Further. So far that the gaseous plain beneath looked small, and the terrestrial plain beyond seemed even smaller

Green feet leapt from star to star across the welkin until she landed suddenly upon a craft. Others were there; spritely forms of varying light not unlike her own. Some were bipedal, but others looked far stranger. Teythinken were certainly not the only beings that dreamt.  
The old footman piloted them across oceans of emptiness, sailed them through bright mother-clouds where the stars were born, and expertly guided the wheel with its multitudes of arms. It sat on a mat atop a large cubic furnace, white smoke billowing out underneath from thin slits on the four faces. With it’s free appendages it grabbed specks of light from overboard, clutching them tightly like eggs, and tossed them through the white smoke into the firey machine. The destruction of each little ember caused a spout of white fire to lick the billowy tassels of the mat.

That ancient thing of dreams turned it’s dark head to the side and gazed down at her with those colorless yet somehow grandfatherly eyes. She waved at it, and it waved down at her with a few hands that happened at that moment to be unoccupied.

A sprite floated towards her from the opposite railing, radiating aura setting the floor tiles alight as it glided along. It came up very close, their lights mingled with one another, casting swirling binary hues along the ship deck.

Strange for the dark one to be so open, isn’t it?, the sprite projected. The thought was in Sqraine. This was a teythin. A woman.

The apprentice giggled. A strange sound in this state. The footman is always so shy, she bounced, perhaps it has grown some courage of late?

Footman? The other questioned. That is a very fitting title, little one. A vague arm reached out and patted her head, the resulting color a rare one. The Steward of Dreams… Ooo, if I had a spine there would be chills running down it! Her shade brightened merrily.

She hunched over to get even closer, blank faces of light almost touching. So, little one, what is the name of your mortal vessel?  
My name is Sinnis, a ward of Myrn, the girl replied innocently.

Individual guardianship, huh? How rare. Her light body turned to face the clouds and dust speeding past. A strange move, considering one could view the universe in a full 360 degrees here, where a body of light is not restricted by mortal eyes. She rested fingerless hands on the railing. There are four in Domnirie who go by that name, which is your Myrn?

Myrn of the Tower, is what she told me to say if any were to ask.  
Ah, the Planewalker, your Myrn is that one. She is quite famous, you now. Inhabitor of that isolated tower, master to a familiar with it’s own will; she is quite the eccentric. You are her apprentice, then? The woman questioned.

The girl did not answer immediately, but instead made known a question of her own. You’re pretty new to this state, aren’t you?

Her surprise was tangible in the space between them. Yes, very. I have been here less than a set of occasions.

Why do you visit so infrequently?

You are surprisingly ignorant for a pupil to the Planewalker, you know that? I am unremarkable in my skill with the weylines. It takes great concentration for most teythinken to get here. The Planewalker has a great affinity for spatial manipulation, the only teythin who can attempt to traverse Sahl with any modicum of safety. To have two living at the same time. It is extraordinary.

The apprentice’s feelings welled up inside her. All of the sudden, the blackness over the railing seemed cloying, the other sprites felt too close, and the furnace flames became too frightening.

I apologize, she thought to the woman quickly, I am going now.  
The woman’s vague light body turned to her. No, Sinnis, wait. I want to speak mo-

But the girl was already falling. She plummeted through the deck, down past sprites in the lower levels, and out the curved hull. Her falling form moved faster than light, guided by the cord that linked her to her sleeping body. Past the clouds and the stars without a sound. Body of light connecting to channels unseen and becoming one with the stream for a time. Energy flowed past her like liquid water, a perfect medium for the souls to travel through. Nothing else could come into contact with them.

Her aura faded and green flesh returned as she neared Ahmdulain. A tiny speck in the distance at first, quickly growing into a swirling green jewel as it’s mass seemingly rushed up to her. An enormous wayline speared the planet through and exited the other side, the element roared through it like the green of a mighty river, it’s thud could be felt in tens of light years in every direction. The twin points on the massive sphere it punctured: The Silver Plains and the Gilded Tines. It was very easy to see when viewed this way.

A close to immaterial comet, she turned sharply, skimming the outermost layer of the atmosphere like a stone on water before plummeting through cloud cover and falling headlong over the plains. Little presence faced with the gigantic openness, a mere dot in the face of the planet’s curve. Falling towards the waving fingers of the inowlken, aligning with the boundaries of Domnirie. She rocketed through the air and came over the lonesome tower. Now that she thought about it in passing, it was separate from the other dwellings.

Spirit fell towards the spire at breakneck speed, ready for intangible impalement. The dark spear rushed past her stomach, and she shivered as the metal and stone passed right through her.

Can never quite get used to that, she thought as she settled like a sheet over her body. Drifting leisurely above it until becoming one once more.

Her body always felt unused after leaving for any significant stint of time. Cold, like a favorite chair not sat in for a while, finger and toe tips numb. She became aware of the thing in her hands first; clutched it tightly to herself and cracked an eye.

The dull radiance filled up her vision, the needle bent around it the atom thin waylines threading throughout the room. If she tried hard enough, she could see the littlest lines even now. It always seemed so much easier to do so without a body. Spectral, they flowed through all the multiverse like veins; the blood of the cosmos thumped all around her. The smallest ended like hairs into nothingness while some ended in ghostly bulbs that pulsed with the element; these were uncommon things. Not spectacularly rare, but also not easy to find either. The girl had counted only six in all the tower out of the billions of little strands she could detect.

The warm metal, she felt it against her skin and wished for Myrn to come home. At the end of wakefulness, each time since the mistress left, she had come down to this room and slept curled in this very chair. Her scent was quickly beginning to overpower the mistress’. Myrn had been gone for almost eight starrings now and Sinnis was growing more worried with each passage of Ol.

She sat up stiffly, needle laid across her lap, and knitted her eyebrows together in thought.

I should leave the tower today, experience a little of the city… explore the Plains some more, maybe. Oh! I could visit Aes, maybe try and get a good cut on him at least once before the Old Ohktul breaths his last.

Her face softened up considerably for the old combat master as she thought of him. That old crow was five cycles Myrn’s senior, and had even taught her needlemanship and the crafting arts. Myrn had said that she had finally outdone him with the very thing Sinnis held across her legs now. She could picture them both now, mystic glow outlining their forms bent over a worktable, painstakingly etching fiery runes of the concepts they wished for those pieces to embody upon each metallic surface. He reminded her of Footman somewhat. It was the eyes. Something in each radiated age and wisdom; though the old crow’s also glinted with something a tad more mischievous at times.

Her grin lit up that dim room.

I’ll visit Aes first, I think, she thought giddily at the needle resting in her lap. Sinnis placed it where she now slept as if to guard her dreams, and strode up to an empty suit; gingerly lifting the needle off its holdings as if a revered artifact. To her and Myrn, it was.

Belt and weapon in tow, she made her way to her humble room and donned a loose, flowing robe. Plain, her master frowned upon needless decoration and opulence. She felt just like she imagined Myrn had countless times in the past as the buckle clicked sharply, belt cinched snug about her thin waist, as needle slid into scabbard. She felt like a warrior of old. She had the disembodied combat experience to match one; she reckoned. The difficulty lay in applying what she had seen. She glided down the tower to the main archway at the base. Her feet padded on the warm stone at ground level.

Mmm, cloudy, she thought as her head tilted up. Ol seemed not to be in the mood today, hiding it’s bright face behind it’s rolling bedtime sheets. They were a deep crimson today, unusual this late in the solar cycle.

She smelled rain on the breeze. Rain and inowlken. 

She hopped downhill from stepping stone to stepping stone toward an area with actual teythinken in it. Why is she so secluded? The stones followed a curved wall as they spiralled downwards, dropping away in exactly eighty nine hops to reveal Domnirie. To her left, a well cultivated fungus patch, metallic caps little and big sprouted from crisp mountain soil. The early dew beaded off their fleshy rims to pool into droplets and fall down to little inowl patches clustered about. Fingers tickling the gilled undersides in the cool wind.

To her right stretched the city wall, her tower being nestled in a corner where battlement ran into the mountainside seamlessly. Teythinken grew most of their larger buildings from the living rock itself. The stepping stones ran along a path between these, lined with irregular clumps of inowl and fungus to connect with a proper street between two spherical homes. A young teythin male lived in the one on the right, and on the left lived a bottler by the name Narus. He had purple eyes.

She sent a greeting through the white marble, Hey, Narus.

An acrid aftertaste, he was working on something big for sure. She got an image of a stone awash in green light, like an ember, and gloved hands doing something to it; all reflected in a pair of large goggles.

...Greetings, Sinnis…

Sorry, she thought at his house as she strolled past onto the thoroughfare. Busy today… she thought deeply as teythinken a lot taller than herself walked to and fro. She turned left past Narus’ sphere and entered the tide, allowing her body to be gently carried along. She passed many marble spheres; some were cold, others had an empty mind within, others held a manic mind in the center, and others still held multiple teythinken inside.

Sinnis came to a fork in the path and took the left. There was an epicer in the patch between the two roads, creating an epic off the top of her head. Aloud came the hushed whisper:  
“... wove dust and starlight together in cosmic tapestry. Poured thick life onto the barren spheres of clay. In a mere moment to the All came the taming of the waylines, a vast field of blooded needles, the growing of Domnirie, the schism of the factions…”  
Sounds scary, the girl thought, as she passed. The concept of one being existing before all else, and creating everything thereafter? The power such a creature would have...

She walked along, the white spheres shrank or grew depending upon that teythin’s passion in life. Craftsmen needed large homes, whereas orators and chroniclers did not. The girl stopped abruptly, hurried and unbusied bodies alike flowing around her.

This was the one, a large grey sphere with several floors, a quartet of decorative spines stood guard at the opening up top. Light smoke danced out wraith-like. Faint hammering reverberated throughout the entire area. Quiet but powerful all the same.

She steeled her eyes and rested her hand on the needle’s pommel as she strode into the archway. Ol’s intensity on her neck eased as she slunk into the cool shade. The space was always cluttered with materials; strips of leather of varying size and color stacked atop one another, Aes probably had two of every creature on the Plains with a hide to skin. Glimmering metals made small polychrome mountains, accentuated by tinier piles of opaque crystal and fiery runestones.

Sinnis negotiated around these obstacles easily, weaving through the room and to an archway on the far wall with weightless stealth. She eased half a little green face around the wall, the broad back of Aes reflected back to her golden eyes, form silhouetted slightly by the flaring embers of a forge in action. Sinewy arm moved up and down at the elbow so the hammer blows coaxed a nearly finished piece into deadly perfection. She could feel the sheer weight of the hammer and anvil from here. A veritable block of solid blue limstahl, accompanied by the methodic clangor of hammer to needle.

She rushed him, feet moving soundlessly across the marble floor as purple flash escaped scabbard with a whisper of death.

The hammer fell from Aes’ grasp, the hot needle spun in a glowing arc, and Sinnis was facing the ceiling before the hammer even hit the ground. The monstrously heavy thud tickled the back of her skull.

A soot stained face hung over her, long black hair trailing down wildly. Heavy brow framed earthy almond eyes glinting with gold fire. His toothy smile glowed in the dim. 

Nice try, little one, he thought, his gaze pierced through hers. She grinned up at him and sprung to her feet to retrieve her needle, which had been flung across the marble space.

“Next time don't be so slow.”, Aes called to her, twirling his cooling weapon in a bulky leather glove.

Sinnis stood before an opponent that dwarfed her diminutive shape, and Aes saw Myrn in her. He smiled inwardly, sadly.

Little Planewalker, “Second living!”, he roared to the ceiling. Sinnis’ eyes widened as a quick lunge swiped at her neck. She swayed to the side and felt the rush of air from the thrust lightly on her skin.

Aes was good; really good. Every fluid move bespoke endless confidence, his bright eyes set in and drilled into you as if you were the only other thing on Ahmdulain.

A dazzling flash from her left; it was barely parried. He rolled back in from the momentum and carried out a blistering combo of sweeps and thrusts that had Sinnis contorting and jumping over some of them.

“You are a nimble one, I will give you that.”, he taunted. He nicked her cheek, then her shoulder, and then her needle hand. Sinnis reeled, golden blood flowed free from her many tiny cuts.

She retreated through the doorway behind her, batting aside probes in her defenses all the while. She would be able to negotiate around the piles of skins and ores better than the larger Aes. Or so she thought.

He cut a swipe aimed at her eyes, she gave him a duck and his needle impaled her little ear. The girl jerked away.

“Don't trick me!”, she roared at him as she kicked over the pile of leathers between them.

Of course, he picked past the flying debris as if it weren't even there. Aes cackled madly, almost losing his composure, “I got you good.”, he thought with a grin. They circled around the toppled pile.

“Glad to see you're enjoying yourself.”, she breathed testily.

“You are amazing sport for your age, little Sinnis. I do always appreciate you stopping by to visit this old ohktul!”, he said as he launched another full on assault at her. Their arms were barely visible, needle clashes accompanied by wicked little showers of spark. His defense seemed impenetrable, his attacks seemed too fast to follow. The old crow was utterly unpredictable.

Sinnis’ eyes blazed in their sockets, her terrified pulse the only thing her ears would pick up. She was lulled into a kind of combat hypnosis by Aes’ needlemanship and pragmatic tactics. And then, she didn't care if she was struck or punctured; she just wanted to land a solid cut on the old bastard or die in the attempt.

Abandoning all defense, she parried a swipe well for once, and lunged for his torso. It would enter between the middle two ribs on his right side. It would sink swiftly into his soft tissue and it would spear his right lung and exit out of his back.

Except it did none of those things. Impossibly, she wound up empty handed with a deadly point pressed to her throat.

But, something caught her eye in the hand that threatened her life. A small droplet fell and for a second her entire universe revolved around this little drop’s decent.

Slower than what should have been real, it broke against the marble, a miniscule golden explosion as arms of blood lept up on impact. One speck of blood from a nicked thumb. Sinnis looked from the blood and back up to Aes along the needle he still pointed at her jugular. “I made you bleed!”, she thundered. “I made you bleed, I made you bleed! The great arms maker Aes, toppled by a little girl nary six years of age!” 

Aes laughed, “You call a pricked thumb a topple, tiny apprentice?”, he thought, lowering the point to the floor.

Sinnis somehow managed to look down her nose at him, “I cut you, and that's that.”

“Alright, but if this had been anything but practice I would walk away with a cut thumb and you wouldn't be able to walk away at all. Teythinken with ruptured throats don't move.” His eyes glossed over a little then. Sinnis still stood there, looking up at him. “You little rager; just like her.” He thought with surprising tenderness.

Aes laid a scarred hand over her heart. “Lesson over. Get out of my sight.” He pushed her slightly and turned away.

As the girl made her way out, the hammer’s song could be heard once more. It would likely echo throughout the street until Ol rose over the mountains again. Thinking about him, she entered the flow once more and headed towards Archway Ol, named after the star as it shined through it early on in its ascent.

The sounds of Domnirie brushed against her. The light, sure steps of her kind pattered and pittered all around her. The storytellers weaved their glimmered ruby tales. Deft handed clothiers, creative builders, runic bottlers, savory food-makers, suspicious artifact hoarders and many more created a huge system of trade whose chaotic music fed her soul. Plying service for service and good for good, enjoying the challenge of the good haggle. The teythinken lived in their passions, slept with them during the twilight and awoke with them on the coming bright.

She glanced right and saw a nearly rogue pack of children her own age leaping across from dwelling to dwelling, spiralling rays of energy shooting out of the eyes of the more magically talented among them in an attempt to knock their other competitors off. It was a common game in Domnirie. The boy in the lead was called Omym, and Sinnis smirked as he ducked under a snaking projectile and almost lost footing. The crazy band turned around a gentle bend and was lost to her sight. She could feel the collective mirth emanating from all the other teythinken around her as they remembered when they used to play. The more childish at heart among them often stopped their business and joined for a kilometer or two. I wonder where the endpoint for this run lies? 

She considered, Omym will most likely win, he is very swift…

The girl neared massive Archway Ol, she was one of only a handful of teythinken leaving the city. A probe speared up through the fortifications stone underbelly and to a familiar guard.

“Hello.” She caught the soft clink of ohmstahl, the sharp and ready eyes, and a subtle shifting of feet. Deep green stretched taught over a hand resting on a polished wall.

“Be cautious outside, Apprentice.”

“I hope you have a boring shift,” she thought to the watchman.

“Yes, I hope that too.”

As she crossed beneath all of Qwehym Ehpnain stretched before her wide eyes. Vast expanses of inkowlken shivered on a stiff plains gust. Silver, flesh colored, and pale violet colonies danced for kilometers in every direction in front of the city. Silver haulmed eilmahken fruit sprouted proudly from the soil, their oblong bodies the color of wet metal. Fungal patches the size of buildings caught the dying light of Ol on their caps. A sizeable flock of yulainken propelled themselves across the dark ochre sky while wiggling their translucent tentacles in communication with each other. Pulsing bodies grisly with the sight of their visible organs. They had a curious mode of travel: gulping in air from their front and expelling it in a high pressure tide out of their rear.

I wonder what a yulain eats? Their mouths seemed like they would fit perfectly around a head, and she giggled at the thought of a creature that potentially lived on hair.

Most of the inkowlken reached just under her breast as she strode through them, tickling her bare shins and forearms with light touches. They reminded her of kisses. A ferocious wind battered at her body, hair and garments fluttering madly about her as the fleshy fingers around blew flat. 

She gripped her needle pommel tightly, a gesture learned from Myrn’s memories, and strode on towards denser vegetation. The winds lessened strength was noticeable as the eilmahken closed in over her head. She ran her finger down the firm, waxy flesh of a purple fruit and it separated from the stalk with a healthy snap. Sinnis ate the fruit under the shade of a giant fungus, lazily drawing crude pictograms in the black soil with a big toe.

Something rustled in the fauna to her right and she snapped upwards, dropping the fruit as her hand went to needle. Sinnis stood there tensely.

What… was that. She honed her focus to a razor edge, felt every particle of dirt beneath her feet, could trace the veins in the scattered clumps of villi around her, could see every plantar hair on every stalk on every eilmahk. Her foot slid through the soil as she widened her stance, ruining her drawings. She stood stock still like that for many sets of breaths.

The waylines flowed smoothly around her, their serenity finally starting to affect her as she realized whatever it was probably would not show itself. She did not want to fall into some false sense of security; a child would do that.

Swallowing hard, Sinnis sat back down against the fungus trunk. She laughed at herself.

I have barely gone in twenty body lengths and I already want to turn back. She didn’t like how she could only make out the tops of the tallest buildings of Domnirie in the distance. A thought struck her then with almost physical force. How will I go to other worlds if I am afraid to venture further here, a plain I was born on?

She moaned lowly and raked slender fingers through her hair. The Apprentice had been aware for some time that she was, indeed, the apprentice and not fit to be compared to the elder Planeswalker. Sinnis wondered not for the first time what Myrn was like at her age, if she shrank back at noises in the flesh or if she charged the clamor to see what had produced it.

Probably the latter. She started the trudge home earlier than anticipated. Today was less than epic.

… 

She thumped along a cobbled road as fleetly as her armored legs would take her. Her boot disturbed a stagnant puddle, vile water-like liquid splashing all over her cloak. A hoard of squawking crystalline hosts nipped at her heels, clawing and running over one another in their mad eagerness to catch her. If they all caught her at once they’d surely rip her to shreds. Something tugged heavily at the very end of the trailing garment, it let out a death gurgle as she speared it swiftly through it’s soft cranium. 

Myrn thundered breathlessly toward a grimy intersection and leaned left as an infected one swung one of their strange scalpel-like weapons at her. It crumpled against the side of the building after her plated knuckles caved it’s face in. The hoard followed her down the cramped alley, crushing the rubbish littering the narrow street underfoot.

The dead end ahead could be leaped over with some aid from the waylines. Until a well aimed rock bounced painfully off the back of her skull. Her eyelid twitched, she didn’t want to jump over it anymore then.

She turned abruptly on her heel and met the raging mob head on with a ghastly grin; heel stamped the street and a dozen deadly spikes ripped through the center middle, impaling the hosts’ bodies, blood leaking down the shafts to pool together. The rest of the  mob splashed doggedly through and out came the blue hiss of her needle. She speared the rest of the front rank in quick succession while Ptol rocketed out of her cuirass and forced itself down the gullet of a roaring tripod, then the bulk of the chasers hit her. Force magic enhanced her tired limbs, the miniscule silver motes swirling about her arms and legs as she stomped and thrusted with wild abandon.

A clawed hand raked her green face; her blood flecked grin the last image the thing’s eyestalks picked up before she plunged her weapon through its torso and ripped it in two like a damp cloth. The clouds began to migrate out of her mindspace and enter the corners of her vision. Myrn ducked over a broad-blade swipe, buried her fist in the road and pulled it out with a heavy stone coating. She caught the blade on the next descent and shattered it into shimmering fragments, then bludgeoned every dark shape around her with her new hand, mashing bodies into the pavement. Making blue paste out of them.

A tripod ran over a handful of it’s own species and rammed her, wrapping two muscled limbs around her while it ran, it slammed her against the dead end wall. Myrn took her needle in two hands and plunged it into the tripod’s back. It lifted it’s cranium and eye stalks regarded her, and raised one ponderous arm off the ground and smashed the sorcerer’s head into the stonewall. Some pebbles tumbled out as it removed it’s hand from the resulting dent; Myrn caught the next strike in her stone hand, the force shattering her elbow against the dead end. The teythin gritted her teeth in wordless rage.

A runt scrambled up the tripod’s back to get at her before she removed her needle in a spurt of blood and stabbed it’s neck through. The tripod died on a tide of spikes. More and more rushed her. A manic laugh erupted from a dry throat as Myrn laid into all of them.

Blood.

Her stone hand engulfed a face and crushed.

Blood.

A cobbled spear ripped through a runt’s torso and pinned it to the dead end.

Blood, blood.

Ptol ripped eye stalks off of faces only so the flailing bodies could be mowed down by it’s mistress.

A demonic glint. Blood, blood, blood. The clouds made her entire world swim as her senses filled with the sights and smells of mutual carnage.

And then a needle thrust met only empty air.

Her needle arm fell limp to her side, point down into the gore pooling around her feet, and her shoulders slumped. Myrn’s dark locks obscured her bowed head completely while her heavy breathing leveled off. The clouds retreated towards that abyss of hers. She held her head skywards and roared triumphant at the moon’s leering face; black strands plastered across her forehead, deep ruby eyes sparkling with exhausted delight.

Myrn turned her blooded face towards Ptol.

“Quite the sight, mistress.”, the familiar observed.

Golden blood trickled out of her broken nose. She chuckled dryly as she kicked a door in. “Follow me, dear.”

She hadn’t sensed any occupants in the dusty home. A wrecked sort of reception area greeted her; she spied a set of stairs lining a darkened wall and stamped up them heavily. Ptol flowed up her legs and perched on her shoulder. She entered a fire gutted upstairs, one long room with downed wall providing a look at the central plaza. A giant totem burned there, a huge mutilated corpse chained to it. She didn’t care much about it now, she had slaughtered everything praying to it.

Myrn collapsed in a corner, lips dry. Her thoughts drifted to a certain small box inside her pack. Her mouth watered at the idea of it.

“Those white tablets?”, the invertebrate questioned.

She nodded. “Yes, I-”. A monstrous tolling split the air. The iron sound engulfed the city. Both were keenly aware then of an ominous soul in their midst and they were sure it was aware of them. Their eyes were locked on the plaza below as the presence neared and dull chanting could be heard out of a thousand throats. Myrn sniffed ozone as the waylines around her thrummed excitedly. Her heart rate seemingly matched them. An army of hands beat upon the ground like a lunatic forced march. The coming tide of madness was deemed instantly to be a periodical thing in this husk of a city.

She lurched to her feet, “Ptol, we run. Now.” The familiar scurried into her armor as she again shouldered her pack and bounded down the stairs. The slightly sluggish presence seemingly stirred to life, bolting towards the vicinity. Myrn splashed through the blood and out of the alley as the host of souls entered the plaza behind her. The ground rumbled as the dead end alley exploded in a livid cloud. The chanting now seemed right in her ear as minions poured onto the street. Scouring every dark nook and cranny with their vision. Myrn glanced briefly back and saw a wave of haired bodies and thrashing limbs, glowing points of orange staring at her from the tumbling mass of souls.

A patrol, Ptol thought.

Shit, shit, shit, shit! She huffed as her feet battered the cobbles beneath her. Something large entered the thoroughfare behind her, the back of her skull crawled as it’s alien gaze locked onto her. She bolted right at an ornate building into unfamiliar territory as the path she was on was incinerated in a purple cloud. Myrn felt the sweat beading on the back of her neck evaporate in an instant as dozens of souls behind her were wiped from existence. She turned left and leapt over a tripod thundering in the opposite direction, sending a thin, quick spike through it. Probably not even killing it.

All she could hear was the chanting sound waves bouncing off every direction around her, she breathed ozone as dark buildings rushed past. Myrn felt the prickling on her neck a second time, she dove into a darkened thoroughfare and rushed across while quickly spearing a couple runts. She blundered through a wrought iron fence and through a barren plot of dirt, leaping over onto a balcony and scaling the dwelling in seconds. Alien chanting ringing in her mindspace. Her entire being rang with one raw directive: survive.

She jumped across a gap to her left as the balcony building was split in half by an amethyst beam of light, a structure behind her erupted and showered the world in stone. Chunks of stone creatures sailed through the air and smacked into her body.She hit the adjacent rooftop heavily, tumbling down a red shingled slide, scrambled over the railing and fell bodily into a dirty alley. Myrn was faced with a rusted grate covering a void of blackness when the hoard trampled down towards her. She ripped the grate out of the ground, taking most of the sidewalk with it, and hurtled it at her pursuers. Wasting no time in utilizing her escape, Myrn practically fell off the ledge and down into darkness. She bounced off the damp ground moments later and tore up another set of old bars blocking entry to a low tunnel, sets of bodies hit the ground behind her as a searing light engulfed that dark, damp world.

The sorcerer was flung off her feet as the tunnel shifted and the sewer entrance collapsed in on itself. Stone and iron supportings deafened as they tumbled titanically to the lower level. Her head smacked wetly against the slimed stone and everything frosted over. She heard only ringing as she quickly stumbled to her feet, the sewer tunnel full to the brim with a thick, cloying dust. Coughs ripped themselves out of her dry throat as Myrn felt her way on the wall.

A form roared out of the dust at her, broad blade cutting a swathe through it and sparking off her shell. It was vaguely shaped like a hunched teythin, white crystal and wiry patches of plastic-like hair sprouting out of it’s body and through ripped gaps in clothing. Four glowing points of moonlight fixed in many faceted eyes traced her movements carefully. She lunged, intent on blotting a gem-eye out, but with a deft movement the creature swept her thrust to the side. Myrn shimmered away from it through the smoke. I love the good ones, she gnashed mentally.

The creature swept with two limbs and the dust dissipated between them in dual swathes of clarity.

It was thin and tall with four manipulative appendages and four locomotive ones, the rest having gone vestigial. The parasite glew hotly in its breast, having completely evolved the runt with time. It emanated virulent heat and ozone.

Ptol analyzed the slowly approaching entity, “Little of the original host body remains. Seventy percent silicon base.” Myrn backed up grudgingly as the host stepped towards her. It swung its blade with a jerky mechanical motion. Myrn launched herself towards it and enclosed the weapon hand in her hardened fist. The creature bristled pearlescent skin disgustingly and threw a stilted blow into her armored stomach, denting ohmstahl. She bared her teeth and plunged her needle through, the blue point growing bloodlessly out of it’s back. The sorcerer slammed it into the ground and bade the stone to swallow it alive, leaving only the head exposed. It’s eyestalks wriggled madly and beak snapped at the air in her direction.Three good stomps caved in the head and exposed a bizarre brain. She was too exhausted to care.

Walking unsteadily a ways down the tunnel, Ptol telling her to sit down, her breath ragged, she finally found a corner to slowly sink into. Coughing into her gauntlet, retching up fresh specs of blood. While quickly feeling her battered armor up and down her fingers nudged a hard something that had pierced her breastplate just under a rib.

“Ptol.”

“Yes?”

“Undo these straps?” The familiar obeyed.

“Scout the tunnel in front of us a ways, will you love?” After a moment, it scuttled off without a response.

Finally alone, her face contorted in pain. Myrn tugged the armor off her body and examined the stone splinter nicking her lung with every breath.

It came out smooth, golden blood spilling onto black fabric as she flung it away from her. Hurt flesh all over knitted itself together in azure glow as she slumped over. Even here did not feel particularly safe. Her hand flashed out and removed a dented tin box from her pack. Her mouth watered uncontrollably as she dumped a handful of plain white pills onto her lolling tongue, crushing their powdery bodies in between her powerful jaws.

Chalky crunching echoed down the sepulchral length of the tunnel yawning before her. Myrn swallowed hard, cutting off the noise. The gentle tremors lancing through her limbs halted as dull nerves flared back to life. The spasms in her muscles stopped and her shaky hands grew still. A line of saliva trailed down her chin as her face contorted in ecstasy.

Myrn’s tired brain flung off it’s fatigue. She flexed her sore arms and sat up, replacing the box. Resting the back of her head on the slicked stone Myrn gazed up at the dank, vaulted ceiling.

“Drainage system.”, she whispered, swigging thick etluvis out of a large flask she kept bound to her waist. Teythinken can live on the stuff for months.

Ptol returned after some time, probe arriving before the familiar. A dry room with four corners and two organic doors. A dim, red light source radiating gentle warmth; a makeshift camp surrounding it. A company of beings chittered quietly with one another around the light.

Ptol’s pale body seeped out of inky darkness and into her field of vision; halting characteristically at her outstretched feet. Myrn laughed tiredly.

“You look well.”, it remarked.

“I am well.”, she smiled sweetly, face caked in drying blood. “Is that a…?”, she trailed off, examining the probe and the forms more intently.

“Some untainted specimens? Yes. Do you think communication a possibility?”

She nodded her head slowly. Myrn strapped on her breastplate and followed Ptol’s slinking form.

I wonder what they'll be able to tell me about the moon?


End file.
